Part-Time Pundit

Rep. Murtha Proves Impeachment is About Criminalizing Conservatism

Listening to the far-left’s cries for impeachment one can seriously believe that the United States has become akin to fascist Germany. They seriously believe people are being rounded up in the middle of the night because they “spoke out”. Never mind not one single example can be mentioned.

Today the California Democratic Party passed a resolution calling for impeachment. This is significant because the California Democratic Party is no small organization.

The unfortunate thing is, many claims they make for Bush’s “crimes” are either not crimes or not true. While I’d prefer my elected leaders to not lie to me, there is nothing illegal about it. That, and whether or not he used false information, the fact that he was wrong does not prove he lied. In fact, if one actually reads the Downing Street Memo, they’d realize Bush genuinely believed the information he used. Being wrong is not a crime.

Further, “disclosing the name of an undercover CIA operative” is simply not true. First, undercover CIA operatives do not work at Langley… ever. However, more importantly, the facts have shown that it was Richard Armitage that leaked the name, not Bush.

Lastly, there is the issue of “signing statements” that are “used to ignore or circumvent portions of over 750 Congressional statutes.” Read the Constitution, the President is the chief law enforcer in the state and checks and balances allow him the leeway into how he applies the law. There is certainly on crime there.

While we can all find things we disagree with Bush about, impeachment is no small matter nor a political club to beat others with. When Clinton was impeached at least there was a crime involved (perjury), and at best all one could say was that it was a small crime that was “just about sex.” In this case, there are no real crimes involved at all.

Yesterday, Representative John Murtha had a rare moment of honest and told America what the impeachment drive is about. On CBS, Murtha said “What I’m saying, there’s four ways to influence a President. And one of them’s impeachment”.

The impeachment drive was never about the Geneva Conventions, the war, or any other supposed crime. It is about criminalizing conservatism, or more appropriate, criminalizing any idea not accepted by Democrats. Even a very flexible reading of the Constitution requires the President to be impeached for “high crimes and misdemeanors”. No where is it even remotely suggested that impeachment is even legal in the case of political disagreement or unpopular policies. In fact, likely such an impeachment, if it occurred, would be overturned in the courts on just those grounds.

The party of “hate crimes” and “speech codes” has always sought to bring the law to bear to provide outside pressure to the debate. Instead of engaging in debate, they engage in threats. It’d be far easier to just ride out the next year and a half and just elect one of their own to the office instead. That is the democratic way, after all.

Impeachment talk began roughly on inauguration day in 2001 and it hasn’t stopped then. While Bush has certainly given them plenty of PR fumbles for the left to beat him up with, they certainly don’t rise to the level of impeachment. Since gaining power in Congress, the Democrats have consistently engaged in actions that rape our constitution and enshrine their own power. At least John Murtha is honest about it.

Know Your Rights

Don’t get stressed out about dealing with criminal matters by yourself, make sure to find a labor law attorney who can take are of any issues that come up. There are many discrimination lawyers and trustworthy local attorneys who can take care of the job. Get your legal issues taken care of right!

April 30th, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | Congress, Impeachment, Law / Legal Issues, Politics | no comments

Preemptive Strike: Bush Firing Rumsfeld is Heading Off Congressional Harassment

Around 1pm Eastern the day after the election, while Democrats were still celebrating their victories, Bush made a sudden announcement of the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. To many, this was icing on the cake of a good election. Many missed the larger picture.

Democrats largely did not campaign on any issues. Even their “New Direction” was nothing that voters really cared about. One of the things they did promise and do intend to make good on is to investigate the Bush Administration, from Katrina (likely “finding” racism instead of fault where it belongs), to Iraq, to… Big Tobacco???

The key issue to be investigated is obviously Iraq and everyone knows it. The Democrats will likely waste no time in beginning the investigation so Bush launched a preemptive strike before the Democrats finished their celebrations. The strategy of the Bush Administration will likely to move forward and find new avenues for success in Iraq. Rumsfeld leaving is the obvious side-effect of this policy shift.

Two months from now when the Democrats start asking for investigation after investigation, Bush can say “I’m trying to move forward in Iraq and shift policy so we can achieve success and all the Democrats want to do is dredge up the past and yet still provide no alternatives of their own.”

Bush is establishing a defense by making the investigations moot. If heads have already rolled, the Democrats will likely be seen as beating a dead horse. This will put them in a difficult position, one where their most vocal camps will insist that Bush be made to suffer and the nation be dragged through the mud for 6 years and the less vocal camps who will be turned off by such antics. It’s telling that the races where the war was the central issue, the militant left fringe lost.

Bush made a good play and is keeping his eye on the ball (2008). Will the Democrats be as wise?

November 9th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Congress, Elections, Impeachment, Law / Legal Issues, Military / War, National, Politics | one comment

Bush Admits to Nonexistent “High Crimes”; Will be Impeached in 2007

UPDATE: After reading around the web some, such as at Michelle Malkin, it seems the President tried to split hairs. If you take a nuanced approach, Bush tried to give the issue back to Congress to settle. However, I just don’t see how the public will see anything but a reversal, certainly with an knee-jerk reactionary press that is against everything Bush. I was afraid that perhaps I’m exaggerating, but I just don’t think the public will see this as anything but an admission that Bush was wrong. For now, I stand by my original prediction, that the GOP will lose the House and Bush will be successfully impeached, in part, based on this action.

Bush has admitted to the requisite “high crimes and misdemeanors” to allow for impeachment. It doesn’t matter that these supposed crimes aren’t truly crimes; he has effectively admitted to them being illegal and makes it impossible to claim otherwise. He has shown fundamental weakness leading up to the election that makes Congressional Republicans that much more vulnerable. Ultimately, the Democrats will gain control of the House, will successfully impeach the President, and he will likely be thrown out of office by a weak Senate Republican majority.

It is no secret that many Democrats (and certainly left-wing activists) want to impeach Bush. This drive started roughly on the day of inauguration in 2001. They’ve invented and refined charges throughout the past few years. Some of these have been completely debunked by the facts, others have hung around. For instance, the scandal of the Valerie Plame incident is that the prosecutor, after knowing who the leaker was the first day of the investigation, allowed the witch hunt to continue. The investigation also proved that not only did Bush not lie about Niger, but the claims were actually true.

However, the charge the Bush has violated the Geneva Conventions and tortured prisoners is one that cannot now be argued against by the President. By admitting that the terrorists have rights on the Geneva Conventions, he makes it impossible to turn around and say the decision not to grant them rights to begin with was legal. This is despite the fact that the Geneva Conventions are crystal clear that illegal combatants are entitled to no protections.

The Geneva Conventions protect only uniformed military who carry weapons openly. It does not protect spies, mercenaries, or terrorists. The fact that the language of the Geneva Conventions is clear on this point has not deterred the left from this rallying cry of human rights violations.

Discussions on what is or is not required in international law tend to border on the absurd. Usually the crowd that vigorously supports international law as binding is the same crowd that believes in the “living and breathing Constitution”. In short, they believe that what is written and agreed upon doesn’t matter; they believe that whatever is “progressive” is what the Constitution requires. The same is true of international law. Many scholars don’t argue what is actually required in the treaties, they argue what they believe the law should be, and thus, it becomes much more invidious to defend against. Think of it as trying to hit a moving target.

Bush, by admitting that Al Qaeda has Geneva Convention rights, has admitted that not giving those rights to Al Qaeda was illegal. He has conceded to the idea that international law can be “written” and “rewritten” at the whim of the “international community” regardless of the words that are on the page. He has justified the very same judicial activism he rails against domestically. He has emasculated the Republican opposition to judicial legislation and has allowed the law to be whatever Howard Dean, MoveOn, and George Soros says it is. The law will always be against whatever conservatives want to do as a result. The rule of law no longer matters to the GOP.

The left has argued that violating international law is a high crime and misdemeanor, a charge justified in the Constitution that treaties and the Constitution are the supreme law of the land.

Bush and the Republicans have run on a strong national security platform. The idea of terrorists sitting in plush cells and being given access to all the rights entitled to American criminals will do nothing but turn off his base. The idea that we have to treat terrorists, who intentionally kill civilians, with the utmost respect is a slap in the face to the conservative base.

Another component of the population that will be put off by this decision is the military. By Bush deciding that the Geneva Convention affords rights to terrorists, he justifies terrorism as an acceptable form of warfare. It is telling that there are no real cries to have Al Qaeda terrorists tried for human rights violations or war crimes. The military faces heavy restrictions that regulate how they fight the enemy. Those restrictions are paid for with the lives of soldiers.

The military has just been defecated on by the Bush administration by being equated as the moral equivalent to terrorists. There may be a few bad soldiers who are being tried for violating military regulations. There are no Al Qaeda trials for killing civilians. By and large, US soldiers are fighting honorably in tough conditions. Al Qaeda fights like cowards. The Bush Administration has effectively told the military they are no better than Al Qaeda.

Alienating these two groups and showing weakness on the one issue that has been the Bush Administration’s strength will likely undermine the GOP platform going into November. There are already over 30 seats in contention in the House and if the elections were held today, Democrats would likely gain at least 15 (and gain control of the House). Showing further weakness and undermining their main platform stance will likely make for an even more difficult case to sell to voters. Combine that with an alienation of two key voting blocs makes for a losing season for the Republicans.

Nancy Pelosi and others have signaled discreetly that they would certainly have hearings that could lead to impeachment. With Bush admitting to violating the Geneva Conventions, hearings almost become superfluous. There is no way Bush can state now that the Geneva Conventions do apply and then state during impeachment that they don’t. This decision amounts to a confession.

Bush will be impeached come January, but it won’t only be over the Geneva Conventions issue. Every set of Articles of Impeachment against Bush go far beyond international law and the war. They criminalize conservatism. The impeachment will attack not only the war, but opposition to embryo-destroying stem cell research, the Patriot Act, tax cuts, the NSA scandals, judicial appointments, and limited federal government. It will likely enshrine a “progressive” standard that all future presidents must follow. See this example of impeachment articles that has one article that says Bush’s response to Katrina was a crime (yet is suspiciously silent about Gov. Blanco’s and Mayor Nagin’s roles). The consistent feature of all articles of impeachment against Bush is that they include thought crimes.

The idea that impeachment won’t be used for partisan purposes is novel and interesting, yet unconvincing. The Clinton impeachment, if anything, was not about perjury (which it should have been), it was about partisan politics. It is not likely that this impeachment will be any different. With the left having a history of trying to outlaw opposing or traditional points of view, it would be nonsensical to believe they won’t try to do it in an impeachment.

Make no mistake, the Congressional GOP will lose at least the House in November and now possibly the Senate. Bush will be impeached in the House and those impeachment articles will include the thought crimes of not being a progressive. The Senate, which has always been weak when it came to sticking up for Republicans, will likely throw Bush out of office.

The Republican Revolution has been mortally wounded today. Now we get to watch its slow and painful euthanizing.

September 6th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Impeachment, Law / Legal Issues, Military / War, National, Politics | 5 comments

Impeach Bush Train Stops in Champaign

You can hear the position of Rothschild here. It comes down to the fact that he hasn’t read the Geneva Conventions, the Downing Street Memo, believes that Bush committed a crime when a mechanic in Baghdad became a pervert, and that he is unaware that FISA court judges have gone on record saying Bush’s wiretaps were legal.

Here’s the contents of the poster.
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Friday, April 7
4PM

All Are Welcome

April 5th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Impeachment, Law / Legal Issues, Politics, University of Illinois | no comments

Weak attempt at an Anti-ACLU Post

There is a movement to intervene in the ACLU case so that real Americans can have real views represented in the NSA lawsuit filed by the ACLU…

Straight from Malkin

Debbie Schlussel, blogger/investigative writer/lawyer, is extending an invitation to citizens interested in intervening in the ACLU’s NSA lawsuit. She practices in Eastern Michigan, where the suit was filed.

Take a look and sign up.

January 19th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Impeachment, Law / Legal Issues, Military / War, National, Politics, Terrorism | no comments

Articles of Impeachment Being Written

I’ve just gotten wind that UI Law Professor Francis Boyle is writing new articles of impeachment against the President. (His old version, here consisted of mostly thought crimes). The local anti-war group will be meeting tonight to discuss this with him it looks like. What this means is that not only will they go after the NSA wiretaps, they’ll go after the war also and put that in. It’ll be interesting to see what the final product is.

UPDATE:
Sorry, fixed old impeachment articles link (http://www.counterpunch.org/boyle01172003.html) dated 2003. Included such crimes as appointing members of the Federalist Society to the bench, not creating opportunities for minorities, and getting Congress to pass the PATRIOT Act. Get that, because Congress passed the Patriot Act, Bush should be impeached.

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Since always, flooring has been a matter of great concern. Where rubber flooring is not preferred due to its volatile nature, wood flooring is also being abandoned for the same reason. Instead, now flooring contractors are going for the ceramic floor tile to replace the traditional wood porch flooring. Even for garage flooring, wood is being replaced with more apt building material.
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January 1st, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Impeachment, Law / Legal Issues, National, Politics, Terrorism | 3 comments